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  He looked in the top drawer for a sheet of stationery, found it, and began to type a letter. The paper was headed EUROPE-AFRICA TOURIST SERVICE. «Dear Mother: Just a note. Arrived safely last night». He felt like adding: it seems like a month, but she would misunderstand, would think he was not happy. «The trip over was fine. We had fairly smooth weather all the way and I was not sick at all in spite of all you said. The Italians were not too bad». His parents had come to see him off, and had been upset to discover that he was to share a cabin with two Italians. «As you can see, I am writing this from the office. Jack Wilcox has gone for the day and I am in charge». He pondered a moment, wondering if the expression «in charge» looked silly, and decided to leave it. «I hope you’re not going to worry about me, because there is no reason to. The climate is not tropical at all. In fact, it is quite chilly. The town seems to be clean, although not very modern». He ceased typing and gazed at a map of Africa in front of him, thinking of the crazy climb up through the dark alleys with the Arab, on the way to the bar. Then he saw Hadija’s face, and frowned. He could not allow himself to think of her while he was writing his mother; there was a terrible disloyalty in that. But the memory, along with others more vivid, persisted. He leaned back in his chair and smoked a cigarette, wondering whether or not he would be able to find the bar by himself, in case he wanted to go back. Even if he were able, he felt it would be a bad idea. He had a date to meet Hadija in the Parque Espinel Sunday morning and it would be best to leave it at that; she might resent his trying to see her before then. He abandoned the attempt to write his letter, removed the paper from the machine, folded it and put it into his pocket to be continued the next day. The telephone rang. An Englishwoman was not interested in whether Mr. Wilcox was in or out, wanted a reservation made, single with bath, at the Hotel Balima in Rabat for the fourteenth through the seventeenth. She also wanted a round-trip plane passage, but she dared say that could be had later. The room however must be reserved immediately and she was counting on it. When she had hung up he wrote it all down and began studying a sheaf of papers marked Hotels — French Zone. At six-ten the telephone rang again. It was Wilcox. «Checking up on me,» Dyar thought with resentment as he heard his voice. He wanted to know if anyone had stopped in. «No,» said Dyar. «Well, that’s all I wanted». He sounded relieved. Dyar told him about the Englishwoman. «I’ll take care of that tomorrow. You might as well close up now. It’s ten after six». He hesitated. «In fact, I wish you would. As soon as you can. Just be sure the catch is on the door».

  «Right».

  «Good night».

  «What gives? What gives?» he murmured aloud as he slipped into his raincoat. He turned off the lights and stepped out into the corridor, shut the door and tried it vigorously.

  At the pastry shop downstairs he stopped to inquire the way to the Faro Bar. When the proprietress saw him approaching the counter she greeted him pleasantly. «Guten Abend,» she said, and was a bit taken aback when he spoke to her in English. She understood, however, and directed him in detail, adding that it was only one minute’s walk.

  He found it easily. It was a very small bar, crowded with people most of whom seemed to know each other; there was a certain amount of calling from table to table. Since there was not room at the bar itself, even for those who were already there, and all the tables were occupied, he sat down on a bench in the window and waited for a table to be vacated. Two Spanish girls, self-conscious in their Paris models, and wearing long earrings which removed all trace of chic from their clothes, came in and sat next to him in the bench. At the table in front of him was a French couple drinking Bacardis. To his left sat two somewhat severe-looking middle-aged English ladies, and on his right, a little further away, was a table full of American men who kept rising and going back to the bar to talk with those installed there. In a far corner a small, bespectacled woman was seated at a tiny piano, singing in German. No one was listening to her. He rather liked the place; it seemed to him definitely high-class without being stuffy, and he wondered why the Marquesa had said that Wilcox would refuse to be caught dead in it.

  «Y pensábamos irnos a Sevilla para la Semana Santa». «Ay, qué hermoso!»

  «Jesus, Harry, you sure put that one down quick!»

  «Alors, tu ne te décides pas? Mais tu es marrante, toi!»

  «I expect she’s most frightfully unhappy to be returning to London at this time of year».

  The woman at the piano sang: «Wunderschön muss deine Liebe sein».

  «Y por fin nos quedamos aqúi». «Ay, que lástima!»

  «Ne t’en fais pas pour moi».

  «Hey there, waiter! Make it the same, all the way around».

  He waited, ordered a whiskey, drank it, and waited. The woman sang several old Dietrich songs. No one heard them. It was quarter past seven; he wished she would come. The Americans were getting drunk. Someone yelled: «Look out, you dumb bastard!» and a glass crashed on the tile floor. The English ladies got up, paid, and left. He decided they had timed their exit to show their disapproval. The two Spanish girls saw the empty table and gathering their things, made for it, but by the time they got there Dyar was already sitting in one of the chairs. «I’m waiting for a lady,» he explained, without adding that he had arrived at the bar before they had, in any case. They did not bother to look at him, reserving all their energy for the registering of intense disgust. Presently another glass was broken. The woman in the corner played «God Bless America,» doubtless with satirical intent. One of the Americans heard it and began to sing along with the music in a very loud voice. Dyar looked up: the Marquesa de Valverde was standing by the table in faded blue slacks and a chamois jacket.

  «Don’t get up,» she commanded, as he hastily rose. «Ça va?» she called to someone at another table. He looked at her: she seemed less formidable than she had the preceding night. He thought it was because she was not made up, but he was mistaken. Her outdoor make-up was even more painstaking than the one she used for the evening. It merely did not show. Now she was all warmth and charm.

  «I can’t tell you how kind I think you are,» she said when she had a whiskey-soda in her hand. «So few men have any true kindness left these days. I remember my father — what a magnificent man he was! I wish you could have known him — he used to say that the concept of nobility was fast disappearing from the face of the earth. I didn’t know what he meant then, of course, but I do now, and, God, how heartily I agree with him! And nobility and kindness go together. You may not be noble — who knows? — but you certainly can’t deny that it was damned kind of you to go out of your way to meet me when I had told you beforehand that I expected a favor of you».

  He kept looking at her. She was too old, that was all. Every now and then, in the midst of the constantly changing series of expressions assumed by the volatile features, there was a dead instant when he saw the still, fixed disappointment of age beneath. It chilled him. He thought of the consistency of Hadija’s flesh and skin, telling himself that to do so was scarcely just; the girl was not more than sixteen. Still, there were the facts. He considered the compensations of character and worldly refinement, but did they really count for much? He was inclined to think not, in such cases. «Nothing doing there,» he thought. Or perhaps yes, if he had a lot of liquor in him. But why bother? He wondered why the idea had ever come to him, at all. There was no reason to think it had occurred to her, for that matter, save that he was sure it had.

  The favor proved to be absurdly simple, he thought. He was merely to fill out a certain form in her name; he would find plenty of such forms in the office. This he was to send, along with a letter written on paper with the agency’s letterhead, to the receptionist at the Mamounia Hotel in Marrakech, saying that a Mme. Werth’s reservation for the twentieth of January had been canceled and that the room was to be reserved instead for the Marquise de Valverde. He was then to send her the duplicate of the filled-out form.

  «Can you remember all that?» she said, leaning over
the table toward him. «I think you’re quite the most angelic man I know». He was making notes on a tiny pad. «During the season the Mamounia is just a little harder to get into than Heaven».

  When he had it all written down he drained his glass and leaned over toward her, so that their foreheads were only a few inches apart. «I’ll be delighted to do this for you» — he hesitated and felt himself growing red in the face. «I don’t know what to call you. You know — the title. It’s not Mrs. de Valverde. But I don’t know» —

  «If you’re wise you’ll call me Daisy».

  He felt she was amusing herself at his expense. «Well, fine,» he said. «What I was going to say is, I’m only too glad to do this for you. But wouldn’t Jack be the man to do it? I’m just an ignoramus in the office so far».

  She put her hand on his arm. «Oh, my God! Don’t breathe a word of it to Jack, you silly boy! Why do you think I came to you in the first place? Oh, good God, no! He’s not to know about it, naturally. I thought you understood that».

  Dyar was disturbed. He said very slowly: «Oh, hell,» emphasizing the second word. «I don’t know about that».

  «Jack’s such an old maid about such things. It’s fantastic, the way he runs that office. No, no. I’ll give you the check for the deposit and you simply send it along with the letter and the form». She felt in her bag and brought forth a folded check. «It’s all made out to the hotel. They’ll understand that that’s because the agency has already made its commission at the time the original reservation was made for Mme. Werth. Don’t you see?»

  What she was saying seemed logical, but none of it made any sense to him. If it had to be kept secret from Wilcox, then there was more to it than she admitted. She saw him running it over in his mind. «As I told you today,» she said «you’re not to feel under the least pressure about it. It’s terribly unimportant, really, and I’m a beast even to have mentioned it to you. If someone else gets the reservation I can easily go to Agadir for my fortnight’s rest. Please don’t feel that I’m relying on your gallantry to do it for me».

  Brusquely he cut her short. «I’ll do it the first thing tomorrow morning and get it off my mind». He was suddenly extremely tired. He felt a million miles away. She went on talking; it was inevitable. But eventually he caught the waiter’s eye and paid the bill.

  «I have a car down the street,» she said. «Where would you like to go?» He thanked her and said he was going to stop into the nearest restaurant for dinner. When she had finally gone, he walked blindly along the street for a while, swearing under his breath now and then. After his dinner he managed to find his way to the Hotel de la Playa. Even with the electricity on, the place was dim and shadowy. He went to bed and fell asleep listening to the waves breaking on the beach.

  In the morning there was a watery sky; a tin-colored gleam lay on the harbor. Dyar had awakened at eight-thirty and was rushing through his toilet, hoping not to arrive too late at the Atlantide. Daisy de Valverde’s request still puzzled him; it was illogical. It occurred to him that perhaps it was merely part of some complicated scheme of hers — a scheme for encouraging an imagined personal interest in her. Or maybe she thought she was flattering his vanity in appealing to him instead of to Wilcox. But even so, the mechanics of the procedure troubled him. He resolved not to think about it, merely to get it done as quickly as possible.

  Wilcox looked perturbed, took no notice of his lateness. «Have some coffee?» he asked, and indicated his breakfast tray. There was no extra cup. «I’ll have it in a few minutes, thanks, across the street». Wilcox did not press him, but got back into bed and lit a cigarette.

  «I have an idea the best thing right now would be for you to learn a little something,» he said meditatively. «You’re not of much use to me in the office as you are». Dyar stiffened, waited, not breathing. «I’ve got a lot of reading matter here that it would help a lot for you to know pretty much by heart. Take it on home and study it for a while — a week or so, let’s say — and then come back and I’ll give you a little test on it». He saw Dyar’s face, read the question. «With salary. Don’t worry — you’re working. I told you that yesterday. As of yesterday». Dyar relaxed a little, but not enough. «The whole thing smells,» he thought, and he wanted to say: «Can’t anyone in this town tell the truth?» Instead, he decided to be a little bit devious himself for a change, thinking that otherwise he would not be able to get Daisy de Valverde’s hotel reservation.

  «I’d like to go over to the office for a few minutes and finish typing a letter I was writing last night. Shall I go and get those keys you’re having made for me?»

  He thought Wilcox looked uncomfortable. «To tell the truth, I don’t think there’ll be time,» he replied. «I’m going over there now, and I’ll be pretty busy there all day. For several days, in fact. A lot of unexpected work that’s come up. It’s another good reason for you to take this time off now and study up on the stuff. It fits in perfectly with my schedule. Those keys like as not wouldn’t be ready anyway. They never have things when they promise them here».

  Dyar took the pile of papers and booklets Wilcox handed him, started to go out, and standing in the open doorway said: «What day shall I get in touch with you?» (He hoped that somehow the words would have ironic overtones; he also hoped Wilcox would say: «Ring me up every day and I’ll let you know how things are going».)

  «You’ll be staying on at the Playa?»

  «As far as I know».

  «I’ll call you, then. That’s the best way».

  There was nothing to answer. «I see. So long,» he said, and shut the door.

  Because he did not trust Wilcox, he felt he had been wronged by him. Feeling that, he had a natural and overwhelming desire to confide his trouble to someone. Accordingly, when he had eaten his breakfast and read a three-day-old copy of the Paris Herald, he decided to telephone Daisy de Valverde, believing that the true reason he was calling her was to tell her it would not be possible for him to do the little favor for her, after all. The annoyance he now felt with Wilcox made him genuinely sorry not to be able to help her in that particular fashion. He rang the Villa Hesperides: she was having breakfast. He told her the situation, and stressed Wilcox’s peculiar behavior. She was silent a moment.

  «My dear, the man’s a raving maniac!» she finally cried. «I must talk to you about this. When are you free?»

  «Anytime, it looks like».

  «Sunday afternoon?»

  «What time?» he said, thinking of the picnic with Hadija.

  «Oh, sixish».

  «Sure». The picnic would be over long before that.

  «Perfect. I’ll take you to a little party I know you’ll enjoy. It’s at the Beidaouis’. They’re Arabs, and I’m devoted to them».

  «A party?» Dyar sounded unsure.

  «Oh, not a party, really. A gathering of a few old friends at the Beidaoui Palace».

  «Wouldn’t I be a little in the way?»

  «Nonsense. They love new faces. Stop being anti-social, Mr. Dyar. It just won’t do in Tangier. My poor poached egg is getting cold».

  It was agreed that she would call for him at his hotel at six on Sunday. Again he apologized for his powerlessness to help her.

  «Couldn’t care less,» she said. «Good-bye, my dear. Until Sunday».

  And as Sunday approached and the weather remained undecided, he was increasingly apprehensive. It would probably rain. If it did, they could not have a picnic and there would be no use in his going to the Parque Espinel to meet Hadija. Yet he knew he would go anyway, on the chance that she might be waiting for him. Even if the weather were clear, he must be prepared for her not being there. He began to train inwardly for that eventuality and to repeat to himself that it was of no importance to him whether she appeared or not. She was not a real person; it could not matter what a toy did. But there was no inner argument he could provide that would remove the tense expectancy he felt when he thought of Sunday morning. He spent the days learning the facts in
the material Wilcox had given him, and when he got up on Sunday morning it was not raining.

  VIII

  Where the little side street ended they came out at the top of a high cliff. It was a windy day and the sky was full of fast-moving clouds. Occasionally the sun came through, a patch of its light spreading along the dark water of the strait below. Halfway down, where the gradient was less steep and brilliant green grass covered the slope, a flock of black goats wandered. The odor of iodine and seaweed in the air made Dyar hungry.

  «This is the life,» he said.

  «What you sigh?» inquired Hadija.

  «I like this».

  «Oh, yes!» She smiled.

  A long series of notches had been hewn in a diagonal line across the upper rock, forming a stairway. Slowly they descended the steps, he first, holding the picnic basket carefully, feeling a little dizzy, and wondering if she minded the steepness and height. «Probably not,» he thought presently. «These people can take anything». The idea irritated him. As they got lower the sound of the waves grew louder.